Disclaimer: Don't own Numb3rs or the characters from said show.

Apologies for the wait in getting this chapter up! Hope it was worth waiting for.

Chapter Seventeen – Robbery in progress.

Don returned to join David and watch the rest of the interview with Chalmers. "He's OK, I've sent him home." Said Don at the other agents enquiring look. "How are Megan and Liz faring?"

"Not good. We've got this guy for at least three counts of aggravated robbery and numerous weapons charges, but he's denying everything. Claiming the guns and cash weren't his."

"What excuse did he use for the fact that we have video footage of him?"

"Reckons someone is framing him and they copied his tattoo."

"Right. Well perhaps we should try speaking to one of the other men we arrested, we can hold Chalmers on weapons charges anyway. Let him have a night to think about things, maybe he will feel more like talking in the morning."

"We arrested six people, we only have footage of four. There are four men that match the height of the robbers, including Chalmers."

"Unfortunately the fact they're the same height won't be enough. We need something else, a confession would make it all easier, either that or if someone turns." Don knocked on the window dividing the interview room from where they were watching. A minute later Megan and Liz were standing with them discussing their next move.

"I agree with Don, we're not getting anywhere right now. There was one young man we arrested, he is the right height to match the shortest of our robbers, he was very nervous, perhaps he would be more willing to talk." Said Megan.

"OK, David and I will take Chalmers down to lock up and bring this other guy up." Don went into the interview room and they escorted him down to the holding cells in the basement of the building. Identifying the man Megan had indicated they then took him back up and sat him in the interview room, they left him to go and get a coffee and let him stew a little longer. They sat in the break room discussing the suspect.

"He has been identified as 19 year old Jess Rivers from his driving licence. He has no criminal record." Provided Liz. "How on earth did he get involved with Chalmers?"

"Good boy rebelling." Responded David. "Just look at his address. He comes from a better part of town. My bet is that Mommy and Daddy pay for his every whim. In order to get excitement he hangs out with the bad crowd. They let him because he has money."

"Why don't we go and ask him. David, you're with me." Don got up and left the break room. Jess Rivers looked like a deer caught in the headlights when they entered the interrogation room once more. "You're in a lot of trouble Jess."

The young man looked from one to the other. "I've done nothing wrong."

"You expect us to believe you knew nothing about the weapons and cash in that house we found you in tonight? Next you'll be telling us you don't know Dave Chalmers." David sat down opposite him, whilst Don remained standing off to one side.

"I didn't know about the guns. I haven't known Dave long."

"How did you meet?"

"His brother, Brad, introduced us. We go to the same college. He is there on a football scholarship, we play on the team together."

"What were you doing at his house tonight?"

"I was supposed to be meeting Brad there, he wasn't in when I arrived and Dave invited me in to wait. Before he showed up you came crashing through the door."
"Why did you run?"

"I was scared. Wouldn't you be if armed men broke into a house you were in?"

"We identified ourselves as FBI agents, if you had nothing to hide you should have done as you were instructed and remained where you were." Chipped in Don.

"I might have done, but Dave grabbed my arm and pulled me with him, I was too scared to think about what I was doing."

"Do you know anything about convenience store robberies that Dave Chalmers is involved in."

"No, you have to believe me, I don't. They were flashing cash around when I walked in, but I had no idea where it had come from."

"Do you know any of the other men that were arrested tonight?"

"No, I had never met any of them before."

"Any idea where Brad is now?"

"No, we were going to catch a movie together. He's a nice guy, we've become friends. He's nothing like his brother."
"How do you mean?"
"Dave is a bully. He constantly puts Brad down because he's going to college, like it's a bad thing. Brad can't see it though, he worships the ground Dave walks on. He would do anything for his brother."

"Like rob a convenience store."

Jess paused. "No. He wouldn't. Would he?"

"That's a question we are going to need to answer."

While Don and David had been interviewing Jess Rivers, Liz had been checking to see if Brad Chalmers had a record, but she had come up empty. "Seems little brother has managed to stay on the right side of the law, at least up until now." She told Megan. "Can't have been easy. Their father died in prison whilst doing 10 years for armed robbery."

"Guess the apple didn't fall far from the tree with Dave then."

They were joined by David and Don. "I don't think he knows anything. I'm reluctant to send him back into holding with the rest. He seems like a good kid who just got caught in a bad situation."

"I'm inclined to agree." Stated Megan. "Let's call his parents."

Two hours later Jess had been handed over to his parent's custody. The team were glad that the young man seemed to have supportive parents. They were clearly upset by this turn of events but were determined to make sure he stuck to the straight and narrow from now on.

"I wish they all ended like that." Sighed Megan.

"The rest can wait until morning to be questioned. Why don't…." Don was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. "Eppes… OK, we'll be right there." He turned to the others. "LAPD have just had reports of shots fired at a convenience store, suspect still on the premises." A collective groan went round the team, but they grabbed their vests and guns before hurrying to Don's SUV and the frantic drive to get to the scene. They pulled into the parking lot behind three LAPD squad cars. No sooner were they out of the SUV than they were approached by a Sergeant. "We know that you're investigating a series of robberies. We received a 911 call from a passerby reporting shots fired, when we arrived some of my officers tried to make entry but were shot at. SWAT are on their way."

"Don…"
"Just a minute David. How many suspects inside, do we know?"

"As far as we can tell one. We have no idea how many civilians are in there."

"Don…"

"Hang on David. Has the suspect…"

"DON!" This time David raised his voice.

Turning to him with surprise, Don bit back the angry response that was on his lips when he met David's eyes, they were filled with concern. Taking a breath he asked "What is it?"

"Colby's car." He pointed at the spot nearby where it was parked. "He must be inside."

"Crap." Was Don's emphatic response.

"Agent Eppes?"

"One of my agents might be in there. That's his car."

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Colby stayed crouched in the aisle where he had dropped what he now saw as his lucky quarter. Though the shot had been fired in his direction he didn't believe that he had been spotted, so staying low he moved forward towards where the cashier was standing when he entered the store. He reached the end of the aisle and stopped to assess the situation before him. There appeared to be one male with a gun pointed at the cashier. Colby needed to check if anyone else was in the store before deciding how to proceed. Turning round he went towards the back of the store, he peered round the corner of each aisle ensuring they were clear, it wasn't until he reached the second to last one that he found a woman cradling a toddler. He pressed his fingers to his lips indicating she should remain silent and showed her his badge. A look of relief crossed the young woman's face. He motioned for her to stay where she was as he checked down the last aisle. It appeared that they were the only customers, but he needed to figure out a way to get them out safely without the armed man seeing. At the very least he needed to find somewhere to hide them. He could see a gap in the shelving on the left hand side of the last aisle, he hurried down the aisle and found that it led to a storage room, the gunman stood between him and the exit so he decided that the best course of action was to hide the woman and her child there for the time being. He turned back to where he had left the woman and beckoned her to follow him, but she was frozen to the spot. He approached her and reached for the toddler, a little girl, gathering her in his arms he went back the way he'd come, this prompted the young mother to follow him. He ushered her into the store room and passed her the little girl.

"Stay here and don't move. I will come back for you when it's safe, OK?" He whispered, she nodded in response and he pulled the door, which was conveniently out of sight of the gunman, closed. Once again he turned his attention to the front of the store, he could see the cashier quickly emptying the till in front of him, the gunman was waving his gun carelessly around. The cashier looked up and caught sight of Colby, before he could disguise his surprise the gunman turned and also saw the agent, he turned and immediately opened fire. Colby managed to throw himself behind a stack of tins.

"I'm with the FBI, you have nowhere to go." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the sound of sirens and cars screeching to a halt in the car park were heard. The next thing the gunman had turned his attention to the door and sprayed the glass with bullets. He needed to act before someone got killed. He stood up and drew his gun and aimed it at the man.

"Drop your weapon." He yelled.

The only response he got was another hail of bullets in his direction. Swearing he ducked down behind the shelving again.

"Come out Mr FBI or I put a bullet in this guy."

Taking a deep breath, but not seeing any other option, he stood up.

"Slide your gun out here."

"I can't do that. Put your weapon down and we'll all walk out of here in one piece. If you don't then this is going to go very bad for you. Those officers you shot at will be calling in SWAT."

"In that case I have nothing to lose, you have 30 seconds to slide your weapon out here and step out with your hands raised before I kill this dude."

He needed to buy the LAPD some time, he figured the best way to do that was to surrender his weapon and try to talk this guy down. He bent down and slid his gun out. Then walked out with this hands raised shoulder high.

"OK, now what?"

"You die."

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Gunfire sounded from inside the store, everyone ducked for cover behind the vehicles. Once it stopped the LAPD Sergeant stood up slowly. "Anyone hit?" Calls from around the parking lot confirmed that everyone was uninjured.

"The shots were fired inside the store. Damn, we need to know what's going on in there. How far out are SWAT?" Don asked.

"They'll be at least another 15 minutes."

"We don't have that long, this guy is too trigger happy. We're going to have to go in."

"I can't allow that Agent Eppes. Protocol says we wait for SWAT to arrive."

"Sergeant, one of my Agents is in there, I can not stand out here with my thumb up my ass and wait for him to get shot."

"With all due respect, this is an LAPD scene, you were invited as a courtesy."

"I can make a call and this will become an FBI case."

"Don, this isn't the way to resolve this." Megan stepped between the two men. "Sergeant, you have to understand that the man in that store has nothing left to lose. Not only is our colleague in there, he is also our friend."

"Look, I understand, I really do, but we can't just go in there without back up."

"We can." Stated Don. "Let us go in, I'll take full responsibility."

The Sergeant hesitated, the situation had gone from bad to worse in a matter of a few minutes, he whole heartedly agreed that SWAT would be unlikely to make it in time. Sighing he nodded. "Alright, but this is on your head."

Don nodded and turned to the rest of his team. "Right, Megan and David take the right side of the door, Liz and I will take the left side, on my signal we'll make entry. Stay low, hopefully we'll take him by surprise and be able to disarm him before any more shots are fired."

The team quietly approached the store from the sides, they were out of the line of sight of the gunman. The sight that met their eyes when they were in position outside the store had their hearts in their mouths. They watched horrified as Colby slid his gun to the man holding up the store and walked out with his hands raised. The words they heard next chilled the blood in their veins as the gunman told Colby he would die now.

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Colby was sure his heart had just stopped at the words, he had to act now or things were going to take a very bad turn for him. At that moment a noise from outside caused the gun wielding maniac to turn his attention away from Colby, before the man could turn back the FBI agent took his chance and lunged. He caught the gunman off guard and knocked him to the ground, grabbing his right arm as he did. They hit the floor and the gun went off, at the same time there were shouts from outside. The next thing they were surrounded by Colby's team mates, David grabbed the weapon, Don helped his youngest agent to his feet and Megan, aided by Liz, cuffed the man and marched him out to the waiting LAPD officers.

Before Don or David could ask Colby if he was OK, he was jogging towards the other side of the store, when he appeared again he had his arm protectively around a young woman and was carrying a little girl. Exchanging glances but saying nothing they ushered the young cashier out behind Colby. He didn't stop until he had reached the ambulance that had been waiting in case of casualties. He handed the little girl over to the paramedics, squeezed the woman's arm and turned back to face his colleagues.

"Man, are you OK?" Asked David concerned.

"I'm good. Gimme a minute." Without waiting for a response he walked off to a wall that skirted the parking lot and sat with his back to the store. He took a few deep breaths, he was uninjured apart from the ringing in his ears where the gun had gone off in close proximity to his head as he tackled the gunman. It was unbelievable, he was stalked by some maniac yet he nearly gets his head blown off by a teenager, because that's all the gunman was, just a kid, he hadn't realised until he was looking him right in the eye. All of a sudden he started to laugh, he couldn't help himself, perhaps it was the shock.

The others had been watching him carefully and saw his shoulders suddenly start shaking, concerned they hurried over to him as one. On reaching him they were astonished to hear the sound of him laughing.

"Colb?"

He turned to face Don, tears running down his face. "I'm fine, honestly. Got a bit of ringing in my ears, but that's all."

"Care to share the joke?" Asked Megan.

"I was just thinking how ironic it would have been to have survived all the stalking stuff only to have my head shot off by some kid."

"And that's funny to you?" Asked an incredulous David.

"Yeah, actually it is. I think if I don't laugh then maybe I'll crack up and lose it completely."

"Granger I think you lost it a long time ago." Retorted Liz, she was stunned by his reaction to the situation.

"David, drive him home. I don't think he's in a fit state to do it himself. He can give his statement to LAPD tomorrow. I'll clear it with the Sergeant." Don walked off shaking his head, he'd never understand his youngest agent.

David pulled Colby to his feet. "Give me your car keys." He handed them over without complaint and allowed his partner to lead him to his own car and he got into the passenger seat. When they reached Colby's apartment he turned to David. "Sorry dude, didn't mean to freak you out."

"Hey, don't worry about it, go get some sleep and I'll swing by and pick you up in the morning as I'm gonna need your car to get me home."

"See you in the morning then." Colby got out of the car and once again headed to his apartment, once inside he locked the door. He leant against it and closed his eyes, for some reason the idea of getting his head shot off by a teenager had freaked him out more than nearly being beaten to death, sometimes there was just no accounting for subconscious reactions. Sighing he forced himself into the bedroom and collapsed fully clothed onto the bed and fell asleep almost immediately.